{"title":"Labor in the Age of Finance: Pensions, Politics, and Corporations from Deindustrialization to Dodd-Frank","authors":"Jeffrey Helgeson","doi":"10.1093/jahist/jaad045","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Sanford M. Jacoby's Labor in the Age of Finance fruitfully complicates the history of labor's decline in the United States since the 1970s. Jacoby is realistic about that loss of organizing, bargaining, and political power, yet he brings a fresh perspective to the familiar declension narrative. In a deeply researched, well-written study, Jacoby spotlights how labor leaders found in union pension holdings “a source of power outside the labor market to augment their power within it” (p. 5). At the heart of the book is a telling irony. By empowering efforts of shareholder claims to corporate ownership, labor ultimately facilitated “a wealth transfer from labor to capital” (p. 2). Along the way, however, Jacoby argues that labor unions forged a history of activism in the finance sector that is important in its own right and that in the future could be critical to the resurgence of workers' power in politics and at work.","PeriodicalId":22598,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of American History","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"The Journal of American History","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jaad045","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Sanford M. Jacoby's Labor in the Age of Finance fruitfully complicates the history of labor's decline in the United States since the 1970s. Jacoby is realistic about that loss of organizing, bargaining, and political power, yet he brings a fresh perspective to the familiar declension narrative. In a deeply researched, well-written study, Jacoby spotlights how labor leaders found in union pension holdings “a source of power outside the labor market to augment their power within it” (p. 5). At the heart of the book is a telling irony. By empowering efforts of shareholder claims to corporate ownership, labor ultimately facilitated “a wealth transfer from labor to capital” (p. 2). Along the way, however, Jacoby argues that labor unions forged a history of activism in the finance sector that is important in its own right and that in the future could be critical to the resurgence of workers' power in politics and at work.
Sanford M. Jacoby的《金融时代的劳动》将20世纪70年代以来美国劳动力衰退的历史复杂化了。雅各比对组织、讨价还价和政治权力的丧失很现实,但他为熟悉的衰退叙事带来了新的视角。在这篇研究深入、文笔出色的研究中,雅各比强调了劳工领袖如何在工会养老金持股中发现“劳动力市场之外的一种权力来源,以增强他们在劳动力市场内的权力”(第5页)。这本书的核心是一个引人注目的讽刺。通过赋予股东对公司所有权的权利,劳工最终促进了“财富从劳动力向资本的转移”(第2页)。然而,雅各比认为,在此过程中,工会在金融部门创造了一段行动主义的历史,这本身就很重要,而且在未来,这可能对工人在政治和工作中的权力的复苏至关重要。